I love that the Thunder announcers call the Thunder's missed shots so easily in the 1st half. Dennis took a shot and before it even reached the rim the announcer said "And that will be a miss." I know Dennis is struggling, but c'mon man.

I would say until around the time that the Heat assembled the Big 3, the blueprint was mainly to have someone more like Rodman as a PF. Usually one big man was a versatile offensive option and the other was more defensive/hustle oriented, like Rodman was. An example would be the old Celtics big 3, where Perkins was a defensive/putback kind of guy at C and Garnett was a more primary scorer at PF. Because the game was so much more oriented around post ups and inside scoring, defensive stops/offensive rebounds in the paint were much more critical, especially in the playoffs.

In Rodman's era, Stretch 4s were seen as a defensive liability because they offered much less rim protection than the traditional PF (which was players like Duncan, Garnett, Carl Malone, Toronto Bosh, Chris Webber; Nowitzki was the exception) and could not reliably score as well inside, which was a much more important emphasis back then due to less focus on a spaced out offense. Another factor was that teams in general did not shoot as well as they do now, and had much less of a green light on offense. They were expected to score via layups, postups and midrange jumpers as opposed to three pointers (Kyle Korver once mentioned that, when he first came into the league, he was yelled at by his coach for taking a wide open transition three instead of dribbling inside for a pullup jumper), all of which traditional PFs were more capable of doing.

A stretch 4 theoretically could have worked for the Lakers (kind of like Lamar Odom playing PF with Gasol at C), but they likely would not have been able to guard traditional PFs (like the aforementioned) well enough on postups, and would likely not have shot well enough in that era to mitigate their defensive liabilities.

Probably Rodman. In that era of basketball, a defense anchored by Rodman would go a long way on nights where shots weren't falling. Teams scored way less back then and a lot of victories could have been won just through defense

Best passing big man in the league is three names imo Jokic, Dees and Simmons. Does Simmons count in this convo though? Since he's mostly the handler and it's mostly reserved for centers should he be included?

Can we discuss the Miami Heat? It seems like they play so well against top teams, but they are still somehow hovering around .500... I'm a Bucks fan so I don't see them often, but every time they play us they give us fits. Why do you think they can be so competitive in some games, but still lose to the Hawks twice this season? Do they just play up/down to their competition?

It seems to me like the issue is still that the Heat lack a go-to guy when their offense is stalling. For every team, there's going to be nights when the starters/role players simply aren't hitting their shots and aren't aggressive enough to generate offensive on their own. Other contending teams have a go-to option who will simply drag a team to a win when everything else is going wrong (Kawhi, Giannis, Kyrie in the EC alone) which can make a difference of 10-15 wins ultimately in the long run.

there's a lot of games where our offense becomes stagnant after we've built up a lead.. our defense is always great. if we move the ball and push the paint our offense follows, but if we fall in love with iso's and forced 3s then...